The Cries of London Part 7

PLATE XXI.

By all the aged persons with whom the author has conversed, it is agreed that from the time of Hogarth to the present day the street strollers with their Dancing Dolls on a board have not appeared.

The above artist, whose eye glanced at every description of nature, and whose mind was perpetually alive to those scenes which would in any way ill.u.s.trate his various subjects, has introduced, in his inimitable print of Southwark Fair, the figure of a little man, at that time extremely well known in London, who performed various tricks with two dancing dolls strung to a flat board; his music was the bagpipes, on which he played quick or slow tunes, according to the expression he wished to give his puppets. These dolls were fastened to a board, and moved by a string attached to his knee, as appears in the figure of the boy represented in the present Plate. Since the late Peace, London has been infested with ten or twelve of these lads, natives of Lucca, whose importunities were at first made with all their native impudence and effrontery, for they attempted to thrash the English boys that stood between their puppets and the spectators, but in this they so frequently were mistaken that they behave now with a little more propriety.

The sounds they produce from their drums during the action of their dolls are full of noise and discord, nor are they masters of three notes of their flute. Lucca is also the birth place of most of those people who visit England to play the street organ, carry images, or attend dancing bears or dolls. In Italy there are many places which retain their peculiar trades and occupations; as for example, one village is inhabited by none but shoemakers, whose ancestors resided in the same place and followed a similar employment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Dancing Ballad-Singer with his Sprig of Sillelah and Shamrock so green_]

SPRIG OF SHILLELAH AND SHAMROCK SO GREEN.

PLATE XXII.

The annexed etching was taken from Thomas M'Conwick, an Irishman, who traverses the western streets of London, as a vendor of matches, and, like most of his good-tempered countrymen, has his joke or repartee at almost every question put to him, duly attempered with native wit and humour.

M'Conwick sings many of the old Irish songs with excellent effect, but more particularly that of the "Sprig of Shillelah and Shamrock so green,"

dances to the tunes, and seldom fails of affording amus.e.m.e.nt to a crowded auditory.

The throne at St. James's was first used on the Birth Day of Queen Charlotte, after the union of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Shamrock, the badge of the Irish nation, is introduced among the decorations upon it.

M'Conwick a.s.sured me, when he came to London, that the English populace were taken with novelty, and that by either moving his feet, snapping his fingers, or pa.s.sing a joke upon some one of the surrounding crowd, he was sure of gaining money. He carries matches as an article of sale, and thereby does not come under the denomination of a pauper. Now and then, to please his benefactors, he will sport a bull or two, and when the laugh is increasing a little too much against him, will, in a low tone, remind them that bulls are not confined to the lower orders of Irish. The truth of this a.s.sertion may be seen in Miss Edgworth's Essay on Irish bulls, published 1803, from which the following is an extract:

"When Sir Richard Steele was asked how it happened that his countrymen made so many bulls, he replied, 'It is the effect of climate, sir; if an Englishman were born in Ireland, he would make as many.'" However, great mistakes are sometimes made by the wisest of the English; for it is reported of Sir Isaac Newton, that after he had caused a great hole to be made in his study door for his cat to creep through, he had a small one for the kitten.

When the present writer gave this Irishman a shilling for standing for his portrait, he exclaimed, "Thanks to your honour, an acre of performance is worth the whole land of promise."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Ginger Bread Nuts"_]

GINGERBREAD NUTS, OR JACK'S LAST SHIFT.

PLATE XXIII.

The etching in front of the present Plate, was taken from Daniel Clarey, an industrious Irishman, well known to the London schoolboy as a gingerbread-nut lottery office keeper. Dan had fought for his country as a seaman, and though from some unlucky circ.u.mstance he is not ent.i.tled to the comforts of Greenwich Hospital, still he boasts of the honour of losing his leg in an engagement on the "Salt Seas." Rendered almost dest.i.tute by the loss of his limb, he was nevertheless not wanting in wit to gain a livelihood, and became a vendor of gingerbread-nuts, which he disposed of by way of lottery, and humourously calls this employment, "Jack's last Shift." Though Dan is inferior in some respects to his lively countryman McConwick, who has afforded theme for the preceding pages, yet he is blessed with a sufficient memory to recollect what he has heard, and has persuasive eloquence enough to a.s.sure the boys that his lottery is no "South Sea Bubble," where, as he tells them, "not even saw-dust was produced, when deal boards were promised; but that every adventurer in his scheme is sure of having a prize from seven to one hundred nuts, there being no blanks to damp the courage of any enterprizing youth; that some of his gingerbread shot are so highly seasoned that they are as hot as the n.o.ble Nelson's b.a.l.l.s when he last peppered the jackets of England's foes."

The manner of obtaining these gingerbread prizes is as follows:--The hollow box held by Clarey has twenty-seven holes variously numbered, and any one of the strings at the bottom of the box being pulled, causes a doll's head to appear at the hole, which decides, according to its number, the good or ill fortune of the halfpenny adventurer. He acknowledges to his surrounding visitors that he "knows nothing of the lingo of his predecessors, the famed Tiddy Dolls of their day, but that he is quite certain that if _their_ gingerbread rolled down the throat like a wheel-barrow, _his_ nuts are far superior, for that, should any one of his n.o.ble friends prove so fortunate as to draw a prize of one hundred of them, he would be ent.i.tled to those of half the usual size, so delicately small that they would be no bigger than the quack doctor's pills, who chalks his name on the walls far and near about London; and as for the innocency of these little pills, he had been a.s.sured by a leading member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who was very fond of tasting them, that they would do no harm to an _infant babe_, no, not even if they were given it on a Sunday within church time." This mode of gulling the boys with nuts of half the size, if they won a double prize, was equalled by a well-known churchwarden, within these few years, who, upon his coming into office, ordered threepenny loaves to be made instead of sixpenny, so that he might be respectfully saluted by as many more poor people as he pa.s.sed through the church-yard on a Sunday after his distribution, and thereby obtain popularity. Nor is the device in question very dissimilar to the mode adopted in some modern private lotteries, where there are no blanks to chagrin the purchasers.

The simpleton who attempts to sell gingerbread-nuts gains but little custom compared with the man of dashing wit; and there have been many of the latter description on the town within memory, particularly, about thirty-five years ago, a short red-nosed fellow in a black bushy wig, who trundled a wheel-barrow through St. Martin's Court, Cranbourn Alley, and the adjacent pa.s.sages. This man, who was attended by a drab of a wife to take the money, was master of much drollery; he would contrast the heated polities of the day with the mildness of his gingerbread, to the no small amus.e.m.e.nt of Mr. Sheridan, who, when on his way to the election meetings held at the Shakspeare tavern, in favour of his friend Mr. Fox, was once seen to smile and pouch this fellow a shilling; that distinguished mark of approbation from the author of the "School for Scandal" being gained by this gingerbread man by means of the following couplet:

"May Curtis, with his "Speedy Peace, and soon,"

Send gingerbread up to the man in the moon."

This fellow would frequently boast of his having danced Horne Tooke upon his knee when he was shopman to that gentleman's father, then a poulterer, or, in genteeler terms, a "Turkey Merchant," called by the vulgar a "Feather Butcher," at the time he lived in Newport Market.

This humourist had his pensioners like the dog and cat's meat man, nor would he ever pa.s.s any of them without distributing his broken gingerbread and bits of biscuit: he was particularly kind to one man, who may yet be within the recollection of many persons; he was short in stature carried a wallet, and wore a red cap, and would begin his walk through May's Buildings at six in the evening and arrive safely by nine at Bedford Bury.

In his progress he would repeat the song of "Taffy was a Welchman," upon an average, eight times within an hour; and, in order that his singing might be of a piece with his crawling movements, his lengthened tones were made to pa.s.s through his nose in so inarticulate a manner as frequently to induce boys to shake him from a supposed slumber. His name was Richard Richards, but from his extreme sloth he was nicknamed by his broken-biscuit benefactor "Mr. Step-an-hour." The money made by the gingerbread heroes is hardly credible; however, it is of little use, as the profits are generally spent in gin and hot suppers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Chick Weed_]

CHICKWEED AND GROUNDSEL.

PLATE XXIV.

The subject of this Plate is George Smith, a Brush-maker out of employ, in consequence of frequent visitations of the rheumatism. This man, finding affliction increase upon him in so great a degree as to render him incapable of pursuing his usual occupation, determined on selling chickweed, an article easily procured without money, and for which there is a certainty of meeting at least one customer in almost every street, as there are scarcely three houses together without their singing birds.

After a very short trial of his new calling, he found he had no occasion to cry his chickweed, for that if he only stood with it before the house, so that the birds could see it, the noise they made was sufficient, as they generally attracted the notice of some one of the family, who soon perceived that the little songsters were chirping at the chickweed man.

This can readily be believed by all those who keep birds, for the breaking of a single seed will elate them.

Bryant, in his "Flora Diaetetica," p. 94, speaking of the article in question, says, "This is a small annual plant, and a very troublesome weed in gardens. The stalks are weak, green, hairy, succulent, branched, about eight inches long, and lodge on the ground. The leaves are numerous, nearly oval, sharp-pointed, juicy, of the colour of the stalks, and stand on longish footstalks, having membranous bases, which are furnished with long hairs at their edges. The flowers are produced at the bosoms of the leaves, on long slender pedicles; they are small and white, consist of five split petals each, and contain five stamina and three styles. The leaves of this plant have much the flavour of corn-sallad, and are eaten in the same manner. They are deemed refrigorating and nutritive, and excellent for those of a consumptive habit of body. The plant formerly stood recommended in the shops as a vulnerary."

Buchan says of groundsel, "This weed grows commonly in gardens, fields, and upon walls, and bears small yellow flowers and downy seeds; it does not often grow above eight inches high: the stalk is round, fleshy, tolerably straight, and green or reddish; the leaves are oblong, remarkably broad at the bases, blunt, and deeply indented at the edges; the flowers grow in a kind of long cups, at the top of the stalks and branches. It flowers through all the milder months of the year. The juice of this herb, taken in ale, is esteemed a gentle and very good emetic, bringing on vomiting without any great irritation or pain. It a.s.sists pains in the stomach, evacuates phlegm, cures the jaundice, and destroys worms. Applied externally, it is said to cleanse the skin of foul eruptions."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Bilberries"_]

BILBERRIES.

PLATE XXV.

Bilberries are a modern article of sale, and were first brought to London about forty years ago by countrymen, who appeared in their smock-frocks, with every character of rusticity. In the course of a little time, bilberries were so eagerly bought that it induced many persons to become vendors, and they are now brought to the markets as a regular article of consumption for the season.

These berries mostly grow in Hertfordshire, from whence indeed they are brought to town in very high perfection, and are esteemed by the housewife as wholesome food when made into a pudding; and, though usually sold at fourpence a pint, they are sometimes admitted to the genteel table in a tart.

Dr. Buchan has the following remarks on the Bilberry-bush: he says that it is "a little tough shrubby plant, common in our boggy woods, and upon wet heaths. The stalks are tough, angular, and green; the leaves are small; they stand singly, not in pairs, and are broad, short, and indented about the edges. The flowers are small but pretty, their colour is a faint red, and they are hollow like a cup. The berries are as large as the biggest pea; they are of a blackish colour, and of a pleasant taste. A syrup made of the juice of bilberries, when not over ripe, is cooling and binding."

Among the former Cries of London, those of Elderberries, Dandelion, &c.

were not unfrequent, and each had in its turn physicians as well as village doctresses to recommend them. "The inner part of the Elderberry-tree," says Dr. Buchan, "is reputed to cure dropsies, when taken in time, frequently repeated and long persevered in; a cooling ointment is made by boiling the flowers in lard till they are crisp, and then straining it off; the juice of the berries boiled down with sugar, or without, till it comes to the consistence of honey, is the celebrated rob of elder, highly extolled in colds and sore throats, though of late years it seems to have yielded to the preparations of black currants. Wine is made from elderberries, which somewhat resembles Frontiniac in flavour."

The same author says of Dandelion, that "the root is long, large, and white within; every part of the plant is full of milky juice, but most of all the root, from which, when it is broken, it flows plentifully, and is bitterish, but not disagreeable to the taste."

The leaves are sometimes eaten as sallad when very young, and in some parts of the Continent they are blanched like celery for this purpose; taken this way, in sufficient quant.i.ty, they are a remedy for the scurvy.